


Towards Sleep

by helloshepard



Series: adventures in statistical handholding [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Meditation, Mnemosurgery Side Effects, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tactile Hallucinations, minor existential crises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 12:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17283950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: Soundwave tries to sleep. Prowl contemplates his place in the world.





	Towards Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Post-canon here means VERY post-canon.

In the beginning, Soundwave rarely slept so deeply that Prowl’s insomnia  _ didn’t  _ bother him—it wasn’t the primary reason it had taken so long for them to consistently spend the night on the same recharge slab, but it was a compelling secondary reason. But time was softening them—both of them, Prowl realized, and now it felt far more natural to sleep  _ with  _ Soundwave than without him. 

Soundwave didn’t react when Prowl rolled onto his side to better look at his partner. An accident in the hangar last week had left Soundwave with a damaged right hand. It had been repaired quickly, but the paint didn’t yet match the rest of Soundwave’s armor. It was too fresh, unmarred by the scratches and dents that covered the rest of Soundwave’s frame.

Prowl ran a fast calculation before reaching out to grasp Soundwave’s hand. The calculation was almost an afterthought, but he wasn’t quite ready to be  _ spontaneous  _ when it came to Soundwave.  Maybe next century, when the chances of Soundwave  _ not _ assaulting his mind while he recharged had dropped from 99.1% to 99.8%.

_ That  _ gesture had Soundwave stirring, but he did not wake fully. If anything, he seemed to relax, leaning into the touch and pulling his arm closer, as though he was trying to lull Prowl into sleep simply by holding his hand. 

Prowl couldn’t exactly refuse the offer. Careful not to accidentally jar Soundwave, Prowl moved closer, until the only thing he could see was Soundwave’s shoulder, all hazy blue and unfocused scuff marks. 

Almost as an afterthought, his neck itched. Prowl sighed, lifting his free hand to rub the old mnemosurgery scars. He fought the urge to pull away and lie flat on his back, to give himself an adequate view of the room. 

There was a  _ slight  _ non-zero chance there was someone else in the room with them, masked with attention deflectors, waiting for Prowl to let his guard down. 

Prowl waited ten seconds before turning to inspect the room. 

Nothing. 

He let out a heavy ex-vent and rolled back over, removing his hand from the back of his neck to wrap around Soundwave’s shoulder and pull himself closer to Soundwave. Soundwave was warm against Prowl’s body. The Decepticon had no real need to keep his current boxy and energy-inefficient form; Rumble and Frenzy had undergone their much-desired reformats a decade ago, and Laserbeak and Buzzsaw rarely needed to dock for an extended amount of time. 

Prowl had deduced it was Soundwave being overcautious, keeping his old frame just in case the war broke out again—the chances of that grew slimmer with each passing decade of uneasy peace as it slowly morphed into  _ comfortable  _ peace, but the chance remained nonetheless. 

He couldn’t blame Soundwave for being overcautious. After all,  _ Prowl  _ was the one who had only recently started sleeping with his back to the door, and Prowl was the one who kept the  _ Peaceful Revolution  _ stocked with supplies just in case the worst happened and he and Soundwave needed to  _ run. _

Likely Prowl would never go a night without feeling needles in the back of his neck, nor would Soundwave ever dispose of the black and grey armor fragment that rested on his desk. 

But they had time.

Sometimes, Prowl wondered how the shorter-lived organic organic races functioned on such a small scale, with lives measured in months and years rather than in millenia. How did they  _ live  _ with such a limited amount of time? 

He supposed that was why so many humans existed in a constant state of existential crisis. 

Prowl blinked, refocusing on Soundwave’s armor. 

_ If  _ the war started again within the next fifty thousand Earth years, chances were good he and Soundwave would part ways—if they weren’t executed on sight. Prowl wasn’t deluded enough to think there was any chance Soundwave would join the Autobots, and he certainly wasn’t going to join the Decepticons. But just in case, he kept the ship ready. 

“Prowl.” Soundwave’s voice was quiet. Tired. 

He hadn’t noticed Soundwave stir, hadn’t seen his visor brighten. 

“Yes?” 

Soundwave reached over, mirroring Prowl’s arm over his shoulders and pulled himself closer to Prowl. Then he hesitated, long enough that Prowl had to fight the urge to stiffen and pull away, before resting his hand against the back of Prowl’s neck. The feeling of needles faded incrementally as Prowl’s nerve circuits struggled to reconcile the two sensations.

Prowl let out another, slower ex-vent. 

“Go to sleep.” Soundwave didn’t sound irritated Prowl’s thinking had been loud enough to rouse him, but then again, he rarely did. 

Prowl let his head drop forward until it rested against Soundwave’s chest. “If you insist.”

In the quiet, this close to Soundwave, Prowl could hear his faceplates shifting into a small smile.  

Prowl relaxed his grip on Soundwave’s shoulder and offlined his optic. The humans had developed extensive treatments for their crises, and Prowl accessed one remedy now. The human’s meditative music and mantras were useless to him, but their emphasis on inward focus was more useful. 

Slowly, starting with his legs, Prowl relaxed, imagining himself sinking into the recharge slab, only held in place by Soundwave’s arms around his frame. 

Securely anchored by Soundwave, Prowl let out a final ex-vent and slipped into recharge. 

 


End file.
